Now that I've been kicked back and enjoying my first batch that came from a kit (Brewnett Brown American Ale) and was so encouraged by my success, I'm trying out some of the recipies I've found on here! Right now I've got a Chocolate Cherry Ale in the fermentor going through it's first fermentation. Pitched the yeast last night, and now the air lock is gurggling away!
I modified the recipie a little bit from the one I found on here. Here is what I am using and did:

The recipie I found on here didn't say if the Crystal should be crushed or not, I went with whole grain. Also it didn't indicate if the hops should be pellets or not.
I used Northwestern instead of Coopers on the malt as it was 3 dollars cheaper.
I drew up 2 gallons of water and brought it to about 160 degrees F and then steeped the grains for about 30 minutes. Gave me a VERY dark base. My two sons kept comming over to the grain bag smelling it after I had it out. They are 8 and 4 and think me making beer is a good smelling thing!
I then brought the 2 gallons up to a boil and added the 6 lbs of malt and the 3 lbs of honey. I decided to wait on adding the hops as the recipie I found on here said to put it in the boil right away. I waited and added them after it had boiled for 45 minutes. At 60 minutes I shut off the heat and added the cherry extract, cocoa and decided to add the light brown sugar to give the wort a boost to the yeast.
I poured the wort into the fermentor (which smelled very good by this time!) and added about 3 gallons of cold water. Then stuck it in my bathtub full of cold water. I'm going to make myself a wort chiller, but in the mean time this methode seems to cool it off in about 15 minutes. My water comes from my well, and comes out COLD, at about 46 to 48 degrees F.
I then pitched the yeast. I used Safale US-56 this time instead of the Coopers yeast since I had such success with it last time (and seems to have become a very popular yeast too).
So we'll see what happens in a few weeks. I'll keep you all up to date on how it's turning out.

Next week my ingredients arive for the Carmel Cream that was posted on here. I'm going to get that batch going too.
Cheers!
Andy

I poured the wort into the fermentor (which smelled very good by this time!) and added about 3 gallons of cold water. Then stuck it in my bathtub full of cold water.

Just a quick comment on this, due to the magic of physics, it's actually quicker to cool the hot wort in the bath, and then add the cold water, instead of the other way around. How much quicker? I have no idea